Amazon Signs First-Look Deals With Three Major Indie Studios Ahead of Cannes

If you think streaming is trying to take over the world, you’re right. Amazon and Netflix have suddenly exploded onto the film festival scene, the two streaming sites vying in bidding wars against the biggest Hollywood production companies — and often winning. Today, Amazon has made a major play for supremacy ahead of the most prestigious film festival in the world.

Weeks before the kickoff of the Cannes International Film Festival, Amazon has inked first look deals with Bona Fide Productions, Killer Films, and Le Grisbi Productions, per Variety, three major indie companies that have brought us the likes of Little Miss Sunshine and Birdman. Bona Fide is currently working on The Only Living Boy in New York with Amazon, which will star Jeff Bridges and Kate Beckinsale. Killer Films has done movies like Still Alice, Carol, and Weiner-Dog. Le Grisbi is currently working on Matthew McConaughey’s White Boy Rick and Hostiles.

This is a big move for Amazon, which has been releasing movies theatrically for a little more than a year. Netflix, its only real rival in this particular stage of the game, has not, but is apparently thinking about it. This puts Amazon right in the path of some of the buzziest indie production studios for two years (that’s how long this deal lasts, for now), and might give it a leg up in the middle of festival season.